Marius' Mules VII: The Great Revolt (71 page)

‘Alright. You’d better know what you’re doing, Titus.’

‘For the love of Juno, Fronto, I really hope so!’

* * * * *

Caesar felt the icy thrill of uncertainty. Throughout his entire command of Gaul, which had taken him from governor of three provinces to becoming a conqueror and all-but-governor of a fourth new one, he had rarely been caught off-guard. When he had, he had usually had systems in place to recover the situation as quickly as possible, and had never truly felt that strange excitement of being on the cusp of losing everything until Gergovia. And now here he was, mere months later and feeling it again. It was strangely intoxicating. Much more so than the smug knowledge that he would overcome whatever the odds, which had been his gut feeling throughout his career, even in that ridiculous business with the pirates so many years ago.

But Gergovia had been a disaster and he’d chosen to turn it into a hurdle rather than a wall, withdrawing and deciding to regroup. Then somehow, despite his best plans, he’d found himself in almost as poor a position now. He had besieged his enemy and in turn been besieged, and he’d been sure of success even then. But while the Arvernian king on the hilltop had been predictable and ineffectual, some nobleman among the enemy reserves had proved to be at least as intuitive and inventive a commander as the rebel leader, and had in the end put the Roman forces to the test, at the very limit of their strength.

He knew that Mons Rea had proved to be a weak point, and had committed Labienus with six cohorts to aid them. He knew as well as any man that such an act was akin to jamming a single rag into a failing dam. Mons Rea would need more men. And yet the Gallic cavalry and their infantry support on the plains were in serious danger of breaking into the outer rampart, the defenders truly hard-pressed, and if that line fell then Mons Rea would be irrelevant, for the entire system would be swamped under the enemy bodies which even now outnumbered the Romans by perhaps three or four to one in total.

And the Gaulish reserve was well-fed and well-rested, while the beleaguered Romans were to a man hungry and exhausted. Things were dangerous here on the plain, and would only get worse as his men continued to tire until the rampart fell and the whole siege collapsed in annihilation for the legions.

His men needed encouragement and heart, and Caesar had spent the last hour in a frantic rush of action, all along the plains defences, from the foot of
Mons Rea
to the lowest slopes of
Gods’ Gate
. His white horse and red cloak marked him out wherever he went, and his continual cries of ‘For Rome!’ had made his voice hoarse and scratchy and left him shaking. Every now and then, he’d paused to take stock, rattling out a series of orders to whatever officer he could find - usually Antonius, who seemed to be everywhere at once, encouraging and organising like some sort of Mercury in human form. And between such confabs Caesar had been one with his men, at the fence, driving his priceless blade into Gallic bodies as he shouted for his men to hold, at the gates of the cavalry enclosures, helping keep the enemy from felling the timber leaves with axes, on the towers with the artillerists, helping them sight to pick off the most important of the enemy horsemen, his own steed tied to the posts below. And everywhere he had been, he had spoken to the men as equals with words of praise and reassurance - that they had held in more trying times and situations than these. That they must hold for the love of Rome and of victory. That this would be the last fight and with it Gaul would be theirs to loot. That by the time the sun touched the horizon, the rebels would be beaten.

Everywhere. He had not stopped, and he felt so tired. He kept suffering involuntary visions of his bed and a platter of fruit his slave would have waiting when he retired to it. And with every passing hour and the constant tiring activity, the fear increased that he might have one of his attacks in public, where it could not be contained and hidden. He stifled a yawn.

The afternoon was beginning to wear on, the sun slipping lower and lower in the sky, threatening to turn this fight into a night attack.

He paused at one of the small command posts where a supply centurion was giving out orders and receiving requests from an endless stream of runners, and took a swig of water from one of the open barrels from which buckets were being carried around the defences.

‘General?’

He turned to see Varus looking twitchy and tense. ‘Yes?’

‘I want permission to make a break out from one of the cavalry forts, sir. If I can get round behind them, I can perhaps take the pressure off the ramparts?’

‘Pointless,’ rumbled Antonius, appearing as if from nowhere, swigging from his ubiquitous wine flask and wiping a mix of it and half a pint of arterial spray from his lower face.

‘What?’

‘The cavalry are only the distraction down here. Their infantry are doing all the real damage to the ramparts and if you sally, their cavalry will engage you while their foot continue to rip us apart. You’ll just be throwing away your horse.’

Varus sighed. ‘We have to do something. I have thousands of good men sitting idle.’

Caesar nodded. ‘Their time will come, Varus. And soon, I think. In an hour or so, if things have not eased, I will have to do something drastic to turn the tide, and if that becomes a necessity I will have need of your cavalry. Have them continue to rest and prepare, but have them all filter slowly to the northern end of the defences, towards Mons Rea. Slowly and carefully, mark you. I don’t want the enemy to realise you’ve redeployed the entire horse.’

Varus frowned but nodded.

‘What is the news?’ the general enquired of Antonius as he took another handful of water and rubbed it across his tired face.

‘Brutus is making his way up to Mons Rea with another six cohorts. You know even then we won’t hold there, yes?’

Caesar nodded wearily and stretched, keeping his voice low. ‘I’m having the best part of a legion form up from Labienus’ forces. We’ve almost emptied the eastern arc of our circumvallation now. We can only hope that the entire oppidum has committed, for if they have kept a reserve and discover that we have withdrawn almost all our force to this section, this day could be over very quickly.’

‘But the same holds true of Mons Rea and the plains.’

Caesar nodded. ‘We will continue to feed whatever reserves we can pull together into the Mons Rea camp and hope they can hold while we maintain these ramparts on the plains. We cannot afford a night-time battle, though, Antonius. Our men are spent. If we cannot finish this in the next hour or two, I will have to try something. I’ve already given Labienus the authority to sally if the walls fail.’

‘Let’s hope he doesn’t have to try.’

‘Yes. Cast up your prayers to Mars and Minerva that young Brutus can plug that hole with six more cohorts.’

* * * * *

Brutus gestured to the cornicen he had chosen as chief signaller for the six cohorts. ‘First and Sixth cohort to the east gate. Looks like Fronto’s in deep trouble.’ The signaller nodded and pursed his lips to sound the melody that would send the two freshest and strongest cohorts to support the troubled east wall as Brutus went on. ‘Then sound for the other four to spread out and filter into the northern defences by century. As soon as they’re on the rampart, they are to pay attention to the musicians and signifers already there. They are much more aware of the situation than we.’

Leaving the cornicen to his work, Brutus hurried on ahead of the quick-marching cohorts, running through the centre of the camp, where the only men to be seen were a few supply troops lugging bundles and bags of equipment to some position or other, the critically wounded staring at the stumps of limbs and small makeshift hospitals where occasional medici and, more often, over-stretched capsarii worked tirelessly to save lives and limbs and to close wounds, far too busy to spend time with pain-killers or drugs. Screaming filled the void at the camp’s centre.

Finally, he arrived at the northern defences and he felt his heart catch in his throat.

He had known that the north end of the Mons Rea camp was in trouble - that was no secret anywhere among the circumvallation, for the mass of attacking Gauls swamping it was visible even down on the plain. But the extent of the danger was simply staggering up close. Even as he stumbled to a halt and stared, Caninius, legate of the Twelfth whose camp this was, lurched to a weary halt next to him, hands on his knees and breathing heavily. Brutus looked across at the man. Caninius was a good enough commander, but old-school. He remained at his command post and directed things through tribunes, relying on his centurions to carry out the battle at ground level. And yet the legate was liberally spattered with blood and muddy to the knees, his sword bloodied in his hand and a bandage tightly bound round his upper left arm blossoming pink to show the severity of the wound beneath. For Caninius to be in such a state, things were truly dire.

But then he could see that clearly for himself.

‘What happened to the towers?’

Caninius straightened. ‘You mean why are they empty? Expediency, Brutus. Can’t keep them manned.’

‘But the siege engines…’

‘Were costing us too many men to maintain. The enemy archers just riddle the towers with arrows any time a body appears up there. Didn’t take them long to empty every damn one. And the towers are open structures.’

Brutus peered at them. Each tower stood on four stout legs with a ladder between them reaching to the top platform. He could see the problem instantly from the piles of Roman dead beneath each one. Every man who’d set foot on the ladders had died before reaching the engines. In the end, Caninius had abandoned the artillery in favour of preserving his men. Not a foolish decision, in retrospect.

‘I’ve got four more cohorts coming to support you,’ Brutus said in what he hoped were encouraging tones.

‘Lambs to the slaughter,’ Caninius replied bleakly. ‘Labienus’ five cohorts are already so diminished you can’t tell they ever arrived! The man himself is up on the walls taking his sword and pugio to the enemy. I will be again, when I’ve taken a sip of water.’

It was true. As Brutus looked along the wall, the defenders were all too thin on the ground. It did not look like a position that had been reinforced with two thousand men only half an hour ago.

‘Then let’s not dally and disappoint, Caninius. Take your sip and meet me back on the walls. Time to wet my blade and see how many I can send to their gods before more reinforcements turn up to take all the glory.’

The four cohorts he had brought were here now, filtering into centuries and making for positions on the wall wherever they could. With a roll of his shoulders, Brutus drew his gladius and pugio and ran towards the wall, sending up prayers as he went, nodding to the strangely skeletal, grinning auxiliary who was also moving into position at the rampart.

* * * * *

Fronto turned and shouted to the men behind him. ‘Get that wagon bed over here now!’

The contubernium of legionaries from the Fourteenth who’d so recently arrived courtesy of Brutus struggled with the huge oaken platform, shorn of its axles and wheels and shaft, dragging it towards the barrier and leaving a muddy trench in the turf with its passage. As it closed on the barricade, half a dozen legionaries jabbed at the two-foot hole the enemy had hacked in the upturned cart there, repeatedly stabbing into the gap with their pila, spearing any of the attacking Gauls who dared attempt to widen it any further. Despite their success rate, as attested by the endless screaming and the lake of blood forming around the ruined cart, the enemy were still succeeding, the hole increasing every heartbeat with an axe or sword blow or even the grasping of frenzied, bloodied fingers.

The redoubt was holding better than Fronto could ever have hoped, given the pressure it was under. Yet it still remained in peril every single moment of the long afternoon, and one hiccup would be all it took to lose it all. And if the gate fell then the camp fell, and with it the entire Roman defensive system.

No pressure, then
.

Fronto watched the men move the heavy oak bed into place and begin to drag across the adzed logs that had originally been meant for a stockade, piling them behind it to strengthen the newly-repaired barricade. With a sigh of relief, he climbed up to the top and ducked the expected scything blow, stabbing out instinctively with his crimson-slick gladius and half-decapitating the unarmoured Gaul.

The ‘U’ of the gate was still full of the enemy. Beyond, he could see many, many more swarming at the rampart, which that same centurion was still defending with steady strength and control, and yet more were flooding the circumvallation defences where they touched the camp, attempting to break through there as well. Units of the Fifteenth and the Ninth held that sector desperately. Only the enforced enclosure of the gate had kept Fronto’s barricade from falling through sheer numbers, funnelling the enemy to him and limiting his opposition at any given time.

Yet the large piles of dead only a dozen paces inside the camp and the gathering number of wounded moaning at one another back among the tents spoke of the dreadful cost of holding the gate.

Already he would like to see more reinforcements, troop numbers here beginning to decline noticeably. He jumped back down and scanned the chaos until he spotted one of the numerous runners, clutching a wax tablet as though his life depended upon it, which it well might, of course.

‘You.’

The man stopped. ‘Sir?’

‘Tell Caesar we need more men.’

The runner gave Fronto a look that spoke volumes about how many times he’d been stopped by an officer in the last half hour with the very same message, but to his credit, he did not argue, simply saluting and running off on his errand. Wiping a mix of foul liquids from his face, Fronto jogged back to the rampart and climbed to where the centurion stood, his ears picking up distant calls from a Roman cornu as he did so.